Alaska Airlines Delayed Repairs, Safety Board Says

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February 14, 2000|By New York Times

WASHINGTON - The National Transportation Safety Board said Sunday night that a part of the tail assembly on the Alaska Airlines jet that crashed last month had been found to be worn and in need of replacement in September 1997, but that the airline later decided it was good enough to keep in use.

The assembly in question is a jackscrew, a rotating screw that looks like the ones used to move a garage door up and down, and a nut that connects to the screw. When the screw turns, the nut rides up and down, moving the horizontal stabilizer, which makes the nose of the plane point up or down.

Before the crash, which killed all 88 people aboard, the cockpit crew radioed to mechanics on the ground that they were having problems with the stabilizer. And when the Navy recovered the jackscrew and nut from the waters off Los Angeles, the screw was partly stripped.

Investigators have not said whether they think this was a cause or a result of the crash.

The safety board chairman, James Hall, said in a statement Sunday evening that when the plane had its last major maintenance check, at a hangar in Oakland, Calif., mechanics initially noted that the assembly had reached the allowable limit of its end play.

Hall said, ``the initial planned action was to replace the nut'' during the inspection. But according to the maintenance records, he said, the next day ``this initial planned action was re-evaluated and the assembly was reinspected.''

The second inspection found that the part was within normal tolerances, he said.